


How the Mighty Fall

by DoodleLeeDoo



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hints of Otayuri, Injury, Not sure if this will have a happy ending guys
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-18
Updated: 2017-02-18
Packaged: 2018-09-25 10:55:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9816743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoodleLeeDoo/pseuds/DoodleLeeDoo
Summary: After an injury, Yuri Plisetsky is forced to consider the possibility of a future without skating. How he'll manage to provide for his family, or whether his new relationships will last if he can't return to the ice are things he hardly wants to think about.





	1. The Fall

Yuri moved inhumanely fast, in time with the whirlwind of the violins strings and the thunder of drums from the track he’d chosen for it’s grueling speed and difficulty. It was a bitch to keep up with, but he’d practiced it dozens of times, and to everyone else watching, he made it look effortless, graceful, like a bird in flight, blonde hair trailing out behind him. But Yuri kept his eyes focused, proud, intense, and when he took flight for his first jump, he pushed himself upwards with tremendous strength and power. He skated backwards, fast, into his first jump. His blades send shards of ice flying from underneath him. The jump was executed flawlessly, to the applause of the stadium. He landed with a leg outstretched, and transitioned into a spin.

Yuri was a maelstrom of fire, with feathers in his hair and when he spun, his costume rippled out from behind him, a flame burning so bright he threatened to melt the ice below him. The spotlights shimmered off of red and gold sequins, and he lit up.

The song was Firebird, fitting enough for Yuri to be playing something untouchable and beautiful. Coveted by heroes far and wide. Russia’s prodigy had clenched gold in both the 2016 Grand Prix Final and in World’s the following spring. As much as he’d complained about the fairy moniker he’d received, he couldn’t help but find the elements of choosing mythology as his theme for the year. He and Lilia had chosen the fastest section of the song to choreograph to; as demanding as she could be he found it refreshing that she never told him to make his routines easier, never pushed for safer routines and rarely complained about him adding difficult jumps. For anyone who knew the Russian myth, Yuri had himself become the prize for this years competition.

For anyone who didn’t, he was a pheonix. It wasn’t the right explanation, but it fit Yuri well. Yuri had to recreate himself year after year, from his transition into the senior division last year, and through the growth spurt his coaches had painstakingly trained around this season. Being the more common myth, his red and gold costume, with it’s bright feathered wristbands, and the bright orange ribbons and feathers woven through his hair, had prompted discussions of Yuri’s rebirth as a skater on hundreds of blogs and forums.. And even though he’d intended something different, Yuri almost prefered this interpretation. He was too old to play the dazzling little fairy anymore. Each year had to be a new debut- he had to write a new story, a new myth and legend, that suited him. His fans were more insightful than he usually gave them credit for.

Getting used to his body’s changes had been difficult; he’s grown since the last time anyone had seen him. Yuri was still lithe and elegant, but taller now. Still girlish, but he was starting to exude a certain androgynous sex appeal that had captivated his audience the way he wasn’t able to the year before. He had heard himself called “cute” a million times. But for the first time he had started to hear people other than Lilia calling him “beautiful”, people other that Otabek calling him “strong”. The way his body had grown broader at the shoulders, and his hair had grown longer had many whispering that he was reminiscent of a young Viktor Nikiforov. It might have been a bit much for a 16 year old, perhaps, but it caught their attention. The world kept their eyes on him. 

Like everything he did, he was delicate and dangerous, brutal and beautiful like broken glass. He was already feeling his muscles scream at him. The music was beginning to move faster, and Yuri pushed the pain to the back of his mind as he managed to keep up perfectly with the tempo, maneuvering in a step sequence that evoked flight, and flaunted his flexibility as he raised a slender leg high up over his head. Transitioning into his next jump, Yuri reminded himself not to be distracted. 

The timing was off. He fumbled the take off. Regardless, the phoenix took flight. One. Two. Three...

Four! He'd landed the jump with just enough rotations that it qualified as a quad. He heard applause as he landed. The quad was supposed to mark the crescendo of the piece. As the music punctuated his landing, over the din, Yuri heard a loud and distinct popping noise. The music blasting across the stadium wasn’t loud enough to disguise the distinct sound of something in his leg shifting abruptly into some place it was most definitely not supposed to be. He collapsed and the cheers turned to a gasp as he felt the limb give out from underneath him. Yuri’s right arm shot out in front of him to brace his fall, but he hit the ice fast and hard and somewhere between the moment his hand hit ice and the moment it slipped away, Yuri heard and felt a second crack at his wrist. He tasted ice and blood in his mouth as the ground broke his fall. The music Yuri had chosen for his routine played on but the audience's gasps faded into a hushed concerned silence.

It wasn’t the first time he’d fallen, but it was the first time it felt like this. It was the first time he’d ever screamed, and the first time he hadn’t gotten up afterwards. He entertained the notion of standing back up, continuing the routine, and brushing off the fall. It hurt terribly, as if he’d been torn apart, but if he could grin and bear it- well, the Russian Punk wasn’t the type of skater who was known to play it safe, but his short program score was good enough. If he toned down the jumps he could still have a chance of beating Japan’s top skater, the insufferable Katsuki Yuuri, to the top of the podium. He tried to pull himself up but pain shot up his leg like fire- any ounce of pressure seemed to push his body even further apart. If he stood up now he felt like his body would split in two

It was when the music stopped that reality hit. Everyone knew the routine, and any chance Plisetsky had of making it to the podium that year, were over. Without the sound of Stravinsky to drown it out, the whole stadium could probably hear the strained voice of the Russian skater repeating “Oh fuck oh fuck oh fuck” The ice soaked through the back of his costume as he found himself laying on the rink, barely able to move. Even when he kept completely still, the screaming in his leg wouldn’t stop. “Oh fuck.” He closed his eyes, forced back tears and spat curses out between his clenched teeth.

The familiar sound of skates across the ice brought Yuri back to lucidity as he looked up to see the icy blue eyes of Victor freaking Nikiforov looking back at him. He had no idea how he’d gotten there so quickly. How Victor did anything was an enigma. HIs usually cheerful face lined with worry, he looked surreally unlike himself. 

As Yuuri’s coach he had been allowed to watch rinkside and with his skates still on from his own FS performance, he had reached Yuri’s side before Yakov, his own coach, who was slipping on the ice trying to rush to him, or Lilia who stood with her hands over her mouth, expression unreadable but gesture very clear. Like Victor, she seemed so… out of character. Almost fragile, a word he’d never use to describe her.

A hand grasped Yuri’s shoulder and he looked back at the other skater. Victor was saying something. Asking something.

Asking if he was okay.

“No. I’m not okay. It fucking hurts, asshole.” “Don’t touch me!” Yuri objected, but the man didn’t seem to pay the least bit of attention to the 16 year old’s vitriolic response. Victor took his hand and gave him what he must have thought of as a “reaffirming” squeeze. Another flash of pain coursed through him as he recoiled from the gesture. Victor had seen enough injuries to know as soon as he saw Yuri’s expression that the wrist was injured, and let go of his hand. “What the hell, Nikiforov!?” he spat.

He wished it had been anybody else. Someone he could stand to cry in front of. Someone who would at least use his real name instead of asking him “Yurio, besides your wrist what else hurts?” and “Yurio, you’ll be fine, I’ve seen a lot of falls in my time.”

All he could do now was try to keep his voice from cracking. “Are you just going to babble like an idiot or help me up, asshole? ”

Victor had stood up, moved away from him. For a moment, he wondered if his yelling had finally driven the other man away. He heard movement on the ice again. Victor had moved over to make way for somebody else. Out of the corner of his eye Yuri saw a flash of bright orange. That wasn’t any costume he recognized. No one else had rushed out to him. He knew what it was. He knew it was a stretcher. They were going to slide him onto that cursed device and usher him away in front of thousands of people. Not thousands. Fuck. This was airing on television too. Make that a few hundred million.

The lights were back on now, gazing down on Yuri from the ceiling. There was nothing he could do but lay there, looking up. The emergency staff asked the same questions Victor did, where things hurt and how badly, and he grunted his responses automatically. Yuri’s damp green eyes never made contact with any of them. Half the time the medics, or whoever they were, stood above him talking between one another, and he was more comfortable with that. The nice thing was none of them spoke Russian, and he let every word wash over him.

Yuri glanced out at the seats that encircled the rink. It was the first time he ever felt scared of the eyes on him. It was the type of pathetic feeling that he’d seen brought on Yuuri’s anxiety or JJ’s over inflated self-importance, but it wasn’t something /he/ felt. This was the first time he’d felt his chest tighten up and his breath grow short. He thought for a moment he was going to cry, but the tears didn’t even come, only a desperate panic that spread through his whole body. His eyes caught somebody he recognized in the crowd, nobody important, just the little Italian girl from Mila’s division, but he shut his eyes before he could give himself the chance to watch the expression of anyone else, like a child, he somehow thought this made it less real. If he didn’t see the expressions of Otabek, Yuuri, Mila… that somehow meant he was safe, and none of this was really happening.

Lying on his back with his vision black proved to be much more comforting.

It took ten minutes to get Yuri off the ice. By the time they lifted him onto the stretcher his costume and hair were wet from where body heat had melted the ice. To him it felt like he was lying there for hours. 

The emergency staff were not skaters. There was nothing graceful about the way they helped him onto the awful stretcher, in a musicless stadium. Or the way his tears streamed down his face, making his look like a child. Nothing elegant about the rubberneckers that trailed alongside him like a parade, both press and so-called fans snapping disgusting pictures of his disgusting tear stricken face. Nothing romantic about the way he saw his next season, and possibly his whole career, shattering in literally, a span of seconds.

He put his hands over his face. The last time Yuri Plisetsky had let the world see him cry, he hadn't been embarrassed. The physical exertion his free skate required, and all the pride and fear and joy of his victory has made those tears something he couldn't be ashamed of. This time, lying, wiped out, unable to stand back up again, was different. If he could have quietly skated off the rink with an arm draped over Victor it would have been bad enough, but the stretcher, the fuss, the tears streaming down his face, it was even more pitiful. Photos on the internet were inevitable at this point, and there was nothing he could do. 

Last year the photos of him crying were seen as a sign that he was an athlete who was willing to put himself through hell to stay on top. This year all they seemed to say was that now he had fallen. 

At that moment, with the sharp ache of his leg, the pounding of his heart, and the spinning in his head, he wondered, if that meant he’d ever get back up again.


	2. Flightless

The hospital had wi-fi. It was absolutely shit but Yuri was able to scroll through the results of the final scores with his one good hand. He'd already had to page a nurse to pick it back up off the floor four times. 1st place, Katsuki Yuuri and Victor Nikiforov with Silver. Yuri actually managed to find himself smiling despite his situation when he saw his friend Otabek had clinched the Bronze. 

In fourth, of course, was Jean Jerk Leroy, barely edged out of his space on the podium, poetic irony for stealing Beka’s bronze the year before. Christophe Giaccometti reprised his role as fifth. Yuri Plisetsky had...Well he didn’t even have to look at his score. They were’nt counting any of the points on Firebird. He wasn’t even participating in this competition any more. Fuck it. 

The phone bounced off the white linens of the bed as Yuri tossed it aside. The mountains of stuffed animals that were supposed to have littered the ice after his performance were instead piled up around the hospital room. Tokens of congratulations turned into get well gifts. One of them, a plush little black thing that one fan had fashioned to look like last year's Allegro Appassionato costume, was held tightly against Yuri's chest as he buried his face into it.

The room was aggressively sterile, too bright for him to get any rest, and the antiseptic smell that lingered through the hall was so corrosive to his nostrils he wondered if the hospital’s natural shit and death scent might have been better. He supposed the freezing cold air was healthy too. Given his nationality and career of choice, he should have been able to stand the fact that the heat in the room came from a vent nowhere near the bed he was sitting in.

The sharp, soft “ping” of one notification or another filled the silence of the room. “Shut up. Shut up.” Straining to reach it, Yuri found he’d thrown his phone so it landed just inches out of his reach. Clumsily he pulled at the sheets until it was was close enough again for Yuri to grab it. 

The icon in the top left corner of his screen let him know that he had a series of text messages -27 to be precise- that he hadn’t read yet. A handful from Mila who had inquired about how bad it was, then, maybe expecting he didn’t want to talk about it, simply wished him well and complained that Yakov hadn’t let her come with him to see him. She’d live without a reply- she was enjoying a silver medal right now, so she’d get over it soon enough. Victor had sent him quite a bit of what he must have considered “reassuring advice” that he didn’t want to listen to. Another few from unknown numbers he hadn’t bothered to read.

None from Yuuri Katsuki. Funny, he’d always considered him a friend. None from Otabek Altin. Two people, he maybe, might have responded to. Everyone else in the world seemed to be concerned about Yuris well-being. Even people Yuri had never spoken with. Skaters who knew him only as a competitor, and cared only out of solidarity. Even a few who weren’t there, who had only seen it on TV. 

On TV...fuck.

His grandfather almost certainly had been watching. He watched practically every competition. From the little TV back in Moscow. Not everybody who loved him had been there to see the aftermath of the fall, stand by the sidelines, or accompany him to the hospital. The person he loved more than anybody else in the world was helpless to come see him right now, resigned to speculate over the footage he’d seen on TV. 

Yuri dialed his number, finger hovering over the bright green “Call” button, about to hastily insist “I’m fine. Don’t worry about me.” to tell him he was okay. But he stopped.

Nobody out there was worried whether Yuri was alive. Nobody was optimistic enough to think he was already up and walking. The question in the air was about his career. His future. That answer resided in test results and x-rays and examinations that Yuri didn’t understand. If he called now he wouldn’t be able to say he was okay. He knew as much as anybody else did. 

Yuri had only meant to check his messages but he found his typical compulsions kicking in. It was practically muscle memory, swiping from twitter, to facebook to one of the news apps he typically browsed.

He took a glance at one article “Will Russia’s Fairy ever Fly again?” read the title, in bold black lettering. Clickbait piece of shit, Yuri thought. It was a bad nickname that had stuck with him since his junior years and the implication that he wasn’t going to skate again was absurd. Other skaters got injured. Hell, he’d even seen Viktor in a brace for a short period after a bad landing and he’d been fine. The only setback than man had had was a missed competition and “the horror” of being considered a “fashion nightmare”. Yakov was good about taking care of an injury. He hadn’t ever pushed somebody back into competition to soon, and with patience, Yuri was going to recover too. He didn’t need tabloids and fanpages alike branding him as some pathetic “Bird with a Broken Wing” caged in a hospital bed pining for a world where he could fly again. There were a couple significantly less shitty articles. “Russian Hero Injured- Reports on his Condition still Unknown” was your typical bland, unspeculative BBC article, but he was glad some bookish pale Brit out there thought of him as a “Hero.”

His coach was the only person he’d talked about the situation with so far. He’d even confessed to being scared, while the pain was still raw enough that he was weak enough to make statements like that. Yuri could tell he shared the same worries he did, that the accident had probably taken a few years off the old geezer’s life. He’d spent the ride there doing his best to make sure Yuri was alright, but Yakov had maybe given him two words since they’d reached the place. He’d been unusually quiet on the ride over. The guy was never quiet. A fuck up like this usually meant a lecture for days, and a laundry list of things he shouldn’t have done. He cussed and complained the whole ride, hoping to get the old man to say something like “You shouldn’t have put that jump in so late in the routine!” or “I can’t believe you let her add all those feathers to your costume, it’s not safe!” At the very least he would have been used to that. At the very least, that’s how failures were supposed to go. But this one was different. It would have felt normal to hear a “Why don’t you stuck up athletes never listen to my advice?!”but what he got instead was a solemn, “I know it hurts. You’re going to be alright.”

It felt wrong.

Yakov’s time since they arrived at the hospital was spent yelling on the phone the whole time, and while Yuri really wished this weren’t the case, he was pretty fucking sure the man was vouching for him with sponsor after sponsor since the first post about his injury had hit the web. He wouldn't ever admit he was grateful, but he was. He hadn’t realized how lucky he was to have someone else dealing with the press and sponsors until now. Yuri didn’t want to talk to anyone. He’d had enough for one day. 

Already been poked at and prodded at, which fucking hurt, by the way. Yuri had already been given painkillers which didn’t do shit except for make him feel a bit sick to his stomach, given that he’d barely eaten anything that day trying to fit into that shitty sequined monstrosity. Already watched strangers try to solve the problem of maneuvering the skin-tight fabric around possibly broken bones in order to get him into some proper clothing, and having his protests ignored when they decided the only way out was slicing it in two with a pair of scissors. The costume sat in tatters of red and orange in some bin while Yuri was dragged to the MRI room, where they wouldn't even let him bring his cell phone, the assholes. He’d already had doctors interrupting him with an endless barrage of what seemed like thousands of idiotic questions.

Lying in the hospital bed, he was dizzy, and the sharp pain in his leg had died down to a dull constant ache. Whatever shit they gave him was at least mildly decent, he supposed. The room was freezing. The heating in this building was ancient, and he was unlucky enough to get a room where warm air wasn’t being pumped into. His toes were cold as ice and he couldn’t really move them well enough to cover them without stretching into a position that caused them to light up with fire again. He thought about complaining, demanding he be moved somewhere else. Whining about it to his coaches. But Yakov was busy and he wasn’t sure Lilia would give a shit about what he wanted anymore, since he was basically useless to her now. He’d shacked up in much worse places before, so for maybe the first time since he went pro, Yuri decided to keep his damn mouth shut. 

He figured he’d have time to kill. He put in a pair of headphones and checked online for footage of the one routine he hadn’t been able to see as he was rushed away. It would be a decent distraction, he thought, but the wifi was still shit. It took up a big chunk of his data to load, but (although he’d seriously never admit this to anyone) he liked watching Katsuki skate. He’d always aspired to pull off the complete transformation on ice Yuuri was able to do. He’d caught the routine before at one of the qualifying rounds, but now his step sequences were even tighter, his routine more polished. This had been the routine that had won him gold. He made his first jump and landed it flawlessly, leg outstretched. It was perfect. Something felt wrong about that, what was it- Oh. Yuuri always fucked up his jumps when he was worried. So why-

The video had maybe about 45 seconds left on it when Yuri was interrupted again.

A doctor stood in the doorway. He had walked in the room without so much as a knock. He started talking before Yuri had time to pause his video properly, giving the beginning of his statement as the skater on Yuri’s phone went into some sort of flip. He tapped the screen, stopping the video. He hadn’t heard the first few words the man had said.

“I wasn’t listening. Hold on.” Yuri said, sliding his headphones off, so they rested along the back of his neck.

The doctor stopped. He took a glance around the room and Yuri could tell by his expression something was very very wrong. Yuri had been telling himself over and over since he’d gotten into the hospital that this was just another injury. This sort of thing was normal, it happened. It wasn’t devastating, like the press made it out to be. Every skater got hurt eventually. While Yuri’s timing couldn’t have been worse, it was nothing to fret about, right? The man who stood above Yuri’s hospital bed right now seemed to be hesitating. He shouldn’t have been. All he had to say was “You’re going to be fine. You’re going to be out for a season. Take an ugly ass knee brace and you’ll be good as new by the next GPF.” 

But instead what came out was “Do you have any family here with you?”

Yuri blinked. “No.” He never did. What else was new? “You can just tell me or…” he pauses a moment “What about my coaches? They’d have to find out eventually anyways. Can they come in?”

Damn, the guy looked more nervous that Yuri was, which was concerning, and Yuri soon found his own body mirroring the tension of the man in front of him. When he found his hands shaking, he quickly clenched them into fists, sitting up straight. He was trying to look fearless. Like a soldier.

And it worked for a little while. The doctor explained to both Yuri and his coaches. Yakov seemed to understand what was going on, nodding with the explanation. He’d overseen enough skaters to have a pretty good understanding of these types of injuries. Yuri just looked from one face to another, the technical terms washing over him like a foreign language- a recognizable word registering to him now and again. Basically the jist of it, from what he could tell, was that it was his knee, and that his coaches looked absolutely mortified. 

Yuri did his best to keep the worry inside him from creeping onto the surface where everyone could see. He made a conscious effort to keep his face placid, the way Lilia told him not to let discomfort show in his expression when he performed. 

“So, whatever it is, you guys can deal with it.” Yuri interrupted. All he wanted to know was the answer to one question. “But when will it be okay? In time for next season? If it’s healed up by next fall-”

“It’s extremely likely. Actually you’ll probably be able to use your leg again in four weeks or so.” That was a relief. Yuri felt better. A weight had fallen off his shoulders. His body still felt like shit, but a couple of weeks? That was nothing. From Yakov’s expression he had expected much worse. Yuri was already mentally typing out the text messages he would send to Otabek and Yuuri, planning a call to his grandpa letting him know he was fine. He was probably worried sick. 

Yuri let out a sigh of relief. A month of lost practice and a month of catch up would seriously hurt his chances of taking gold again, considering his competition, but he could compensate with extra hours in the rink. He could deal with it. 

But then the fucking doctor had to keep talking. 

“There’s no question you’ll be able to walk on it again.” 

“But what about skating?” His coach asked before Yuri could vocalize it. The doctor looked confused for a moment before hearing Yakov continue “He’s a professional figure skater.”

The man’s face fell.

And the world came crashing down.


	3. Goodbye

CHAPTER 3

When Yuri Plisetsky was five years old his mother had dragged him to the first of many dance, ballet and skating classes he would go through through his childhood. The first class was a disaster. He was a prodigy, of course, much more talented than the other children there, who never took instruction very seriously at all, preferring to skip around like fairies. Everyone knew Yuri was a prodigy. But he was also Yuri Plisetsky, the sharp tempered kid with a shitty home life, and a shitty apartment, and a family that couldn't afford much at all after shelling out the cash for freaking /ballet lessons/ and the teacher didn't take very kindly when he ended up throwing a hard punch at a girl who had spent much of that class poking fun at him for it. He didn't really talk to anyone at any of the other classes he took after that. Not at his first skating class when he was 6, not at the summer training camp when he was 10, not at the rink in St. Petersburg when he was 14. And while he didn't fight with other students any more, he never bothered making friends with anyone.

Yuri had been kicked out of that first class, no refund, but his mother had made him attend the recital. He had to sit for three hours watching every one of them perform. Their moves were sloppy, they couldn't stay on the tips of their toes and none of them extended their arms properly. And yet, he had never been as jealous of any other performance in his life. He cried the whole time, hating himself for not being able to be up there.

"Davai!" Yuri shouted from the seat he'd taken in the stadium. His crutches had been tossed unceremoniously in an unused seat next to him. He'd refused to take a wheelchair out of the hospital and risk looking like a complete wreck during the Gala exhibition. The cast on his wrist and a braced knee looked shitty enough.

Otabek returned his sentiment with a thumbs up. It had been an ongoing in-joke with the two of them that the gesture be made with a completely deadpan face, but Otabek’s expression betrayed something else- surprise or shock or sadness or….something. It was hard to read from as far away as Yuri was sitting.

He was still supposed to be in the hospital. Otabek probably knew that as well as Yuri did that the Russian skater had snuck out. They'd let him have crutches, so what did they expect? For him to watch his best friend skate from the shitty, decades old box they had mounted in the corner of his room? Or from some crappy stream in 144p on a 3 inch screen?

It hurt to watch him skate, but Otabek was so elegant, strong, he was able to push certain fears to the back of him mind now that he was watching him. He'd changed a lot about his exhibition routine, that was clear. Even if he hadn't shown Yuri before he had described it. This hadn't been his plan. Like Yuri had done the year before, he'd invented a whole exhibition overnight. He had wanted to make a statement, to say something desperately. Yuri's heart ached. He'd wanted to forget about himself for a while, but by the end of his skate he knew it was about him. 

He’d challenged Otabek to make podium this year with him. He’d really liked the idea of standing up there with a friend this time around. “I want to get a selfie with you and both our medals. It’d be cool.” It was taken for granted that Yuri would make it. That if anything, Otabek was supposed to be the one sitting and cheering from the audience. 

Otabek finished his routine and posed- powerful and elegant. Yuri had never felt any more proud or bitterly jealous in his whole life. 

Yuri doesn’t applaud, but simply shoots his friend a smile. A sharp, knowing grin of approval- cocky and quintessentially Yuri. It only falters for a millisecond when Yuri wonders if this is the last time he’ll see his best friend’s choreography from within the same room. Otabek doesn’t seem to notice the discrepancy as he returns the gesture with a nod. It all felt briefly normal.

Unlike Victor and Yuuri, who stayed for what seemed like eons in front of the press, as Victor chatted endlessly about his “greatest success as a coach”, Otabek only stopped briefly for photographs and comments. The guy never cared much for interviews anyways. He maybe said one or two words- before walking past them. Unlike Yuri the guy was somehow able to ignore people politely, giving a wave of his hand or a one word answer without breaking his stride.

He looked up at Yuri, and he felt so incredibly sick that he’d given his envious and competitive nature any say in his friendship. Because at that moment the Grand Prix Final bronze medalist was walking towards him as if he were more important than anything that had happened to him out on the ice this week. Yuri had no clue what to say so he blurted out the first thing that came to his mind.

“The hell didn’t you text me?” It was petty, Yuri knew. 

“I called.” Otabek replied. Of course he did. And of course, Yuri hadn’t bothered to check missed calls. “How’s your leg?” He asked, gentle, but straight to the point. His eyes flicked down to Yuri’s knee, which was braced up hideously. He knew he looked bad. It didn't matter that he'd tried to dress decently or spread makeup over his bruised lip and face. With the brace it was clear how fucked up he was. Without lingering on the sight for too long he looked back up at him.

Yuri didn’t know if he had the heart to tell him. 

The doctor had looked so fucking pleased to tell Yuri his leg wasn’t a real concern. Because the man was an idiot, and so optimistic that his life would pretty much return to normal. A bit of stiffness in the joint, some swelling. He’d be unable to do some things- twisting, turning and jumping might cause the knee to give way if he weren’t careful, and it would affect his range of motion, but most activities, normal activities, would return to him in not much time. 

So of course the man was shocked when his good news elicited nothing but white hot rage from the boy in front of him. Yuri couldn’t even formulate exactly what /questions/ he wanted to ask. It was mostly a tirade of “What the fuck did you just say” and “You have to do better than that” and every obscene way Yuri could think of to tell the man he was an idiot, that his answer was not acceptable. 

It was Yakov who had to explain to the man that Yuri was a professional figure skater. That he had essentially handed the boy his death sentence.

He couldn’t bring himself to repeat that kind of diagnosis. He didn’t want Otabek hearing it, and he still didn’t want to say it out loud. Because he still didn’t believe that there was /no/ way to fix this. Rehabilitation, some surgery or therapy they wouldn’t tell him about- because it was expensive or experimental, or because they thought he was too young to handle it. Or maybe they were just wrong. 

“It hurts like a bitch Beka. I’m on a shit ton of painkillers right now.” He shook the small bottle he had with him. He’d taken a few while he was here, and even though he was positive he’d read the dosage on the label correctly, they didn’t seem to be doing much at all for him. Maybe that was because Yuri shouldn’t have been walking about anyways, but what was anyone going to do about that?

“Yuri-”Otabek objected. He was probably acutely aware that Yuri Plisetsky was in no condition to be standing in front of him at that moment.

“It’s okay. It was worth it.” Yuri grinned. 

“What about your injury though? You had everybody worried.”

“It’s nothing. I don’t want you worrying about it today. I came here to forget about all of that shit today anyways.” and he did. For the few minutes Otabek had skated he'd found himself lost in the intensity of it all. Every one of his routines were impossible to look away from, really. 

He pushed a stray hair out of his face. His hair was a mess, still half tieds up into the braids he'd worn the day before, but ducked up from lying in a hospital bed all day. His lip had swollen up, even though Yuri didn't remember biting it when he'd fallen into the ice. Hed tried to clean off what remained of the makeup from his routine but the pigment he hadn't scrubbed off made him look like a hot mess. Mila had tried her best to help him clean it up. She's been sweet. Joking with him the whole time. Her ability to be the only one who kept a sense of humor around him anymore was much more useful than her makeup skills. He still looked like a wreck. Otabek must have realized he looked like a mess, because the concern etched into his face didn't disappear. 

“Come on Beka, stop giving me that serious look already.” Yuri frowned. His hair fell back in his face again. This time Otabek fixed it for him.

“Should you really be walking on that leg?”

“First, you aren't my coach. Second, I'm not walking on it. I have crutches. Third, this isn't about me. Come on. I want a selfie with you and your medal.”

He fumbled for his phone. Fourth, there had been nothing about that hospital that had made him feel remotely better. He moved next to Otabek, putting an arm around his shoulder. With their faces pressed together to fit in frame, Yuri was close enough to feel a short layer of stubble on his friends cheek. Otabek must have pulled an all nighter on this skate. He may have leaned too heavily against him, but he was down a crutch, and he was sure he didn't mind. He held out the phone, fumbling to open the camera app one handed, before handing it off to Otabek to take the picture for him.

“Ugh. I look like shit.” Yuri appraised.

“You look fine, Yuri.”

Yuri laughed humorlessly, without a smile, but instead with a roll of his eyes. “Yeah fucking right. I look like I've been run over. But I appreciate it.” 

There was a moment of silence between them. Yuri awkwardly picks at the cast on his wrist. 

“Yuri?”

“Hm?”

“You’re not skating next season, are you?”

Was he really that easy to read? Or had the older boy just gotten that good at reading him? Or maybe it was just a given. Of course he couldn't skate like this.

“It had to be right before PyeongChang too, didn't it?” Yuri grumbled. “It's kind of shit.” His shoulders fell, as he sighed. He could feel Otabek eyes on him, probably searching for the right thing to say “You'll have to win for both of us.”

“I’ll try my best.”

“Come on. Can't you say it like you believe in yourself just a little?”

“I'm going to miss you, Yuri.” it almost sounded like a goodbye. Otabek furrowed his brow. Yuri let the silence rest between them for a moment, as he thought. “You know that was for you, right? I wish it had been under better circumstances-”

“What was?”

“The skate. So I'm glad you came.”

“Why-”

“Last year, you and Katsuki did your short programs on the concept of love. I've been thinking about that for a while. And I kept thinking of you.”

“That's stupid. Beka, you should have dedicated it to something like...Kazakhstan. Or yourself or something. Mine was going to be like a badass. Lilia was going to let me skate to Arkona. Dedicating something to me sounds...I don’t know. Like something Victor would do. It sounds romantic.”

“Yuri, it was supposed to be.”

Yuri stood there, mouth hanging wide open and utterly speechless, his green eyes wide and helpless. He was caught off guard by the shock of it all for only a moment until his body tensed up again, fists clenched and body shaking

“God damn it.” Yuri whispered. 

When he felt a hand reach out and place itself on his shoulder, he slapped it away. 

“What the fuck, Beka?” He barked. He had spent all day pretending he wasn’t in pain, limping around on a fucked up leg, but somehow this was the thing that had him forcing back tears. “Why would you say something like that /now/?”

He didn’t know what Otabek had expected his reaction to be. Relief? No. Gratitude? Fuck no. What he had just said was selfish and they both knew it. Yuri had given him a million chances to drop this god damn bombshell on him. He could have said it last year, when the two of them snuck out of the banquet early after Yuri’s performances had finally caught up with him in the form of a wave of exhaustion. It could have been the morning after that, when he realized he’d passed out in the other skaters hotel room, watching shitty Spanish television. Yakov had a tirade ready for him when he picked up his phone that morning but he managed to stall with his newly made best friend for another hour, sipping hotel coffee and browsing online as his friend changed and packed for his flight, pretending he was only staying to charge his phone.

It could have been one of the dozens of late night chats they’d had, where they talked for hours at a time, where Yuri kept his phone on his desk on speaker mode and refused to hang up until 2AM. Even if Otabek didn’t say anything for minutes, even if he was silently browsing online or squeezing in a few sit ups.

If it was any of those times he would have loved to hear that his best friend loved him. But it wasn’t. It was now. And he wasn’t saying it because he just realized it, or because the moment was right, or because he hated the idea of saying it over the phone. He was saying it because just like Yuri, he was scared this meant they’d never see eachother again.

Otabek opened his mouth to say something. Whether it was an apology or an explanation, Yuri didn't want to hear. He turned and walked away. He was slow as shit so he expected him to follow him. He had a whole screaming rant planned out in his mind for when he did, but for some reason he was disappointed when he turned around and found nobody was behind him. He found himself standing in a hall he knew he hadn't walked through before. There was a trashcan there he would have kicked over if he was physically able. It was quiet and would have been the perfect place to lash out and scream. The only destructive thing he had the energy to do was tear a poster off the wall. So instead, he found himself starting to cry.

It all hit him, the possibility that the doctor might have actually been right. And he felt less guilty about pushing away his best friend, because what did it really matter if they weren't going to see each other again anyways? Why inspire any false hope? 

Oh god he was /crying/. Fucking crying in public. It felt pathetic. 

There was a restroom on the other side of the hall and he ducked in, he splashed some water on his face, but it didn't snap him out of it. 

“Shit. You're really going to act like this?” He asked himself. “Stop crying. God I can't believe how pathetic that is. I can't just give up here… Want to sob like a little bitch? Fine. That's not fixing anything.”

He wiped his eyes and nose on the back of his sleeve. The white and blue fabric was streaked with snot when he looked down- he must have been crying much harder than he thought. He was disgusting

He looked into the mirror above the sink. His face was red and his eyes were bloodshot. If he left now everyone would know he'd broken down like this. He looked back down, staring at the white nothingness of the bottom of the sink. Hell, it was easier than staring at his own reflection right now. 

A wave of nausea hit. Medication or nerves, he wasn’t sure but he found himself keeling over the sink without thinking. 

That's when he heard the door close and a pair of tennis shoes squeak on the linoleum behind him.


End file.
